Firing up the “light” Ethereum Blockchain

If you have ever tried to get the Ethereum Blockchain synchronised on you local machine it can be slow and frustrating.

You start googling and all the information is either old and/or fragmented. You may eventually piece it all to together but it is harder than it should be. Even the official documentation is often out-of-date.

I realise this technology is moving fast but I believe it is essential to make it as simple as possible to get interested parties up and running. The barrier to entry should be as low as possible, people want to play with Ethereum not wade through endless old forum posts.

Working with the Ethereum Wallet in “light” mode

As of October 2017, the Ethereum Wallet (used to send ether about and deploy smart contracts) and geth (the official Ethereum client written in the Go programming language) have matured to a level that you should be able to get up and running a few hours (or even quicker) if you are happy to run in “light” mode.

Open Ethereum Wallet and wait for the “light” chain to sync. You won’t be waiting days like a “full” sync and before you know it you will be happily synced and able to interact with the Ethereum ecosystem.

I will endeavour to keep this little article up to date as new releases and fixes are made available…honest.